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Friday, March 15, 2019

Symbolum Nitzschenum

”Kristendomens idéhistoria: från medeltiden till vår tid” is
a book in Swedish by Austrian expatriate Aleksander Radler. The author was revealed to be a Stasi informer some
years ago, and forced to leave all his political and religious offices (he was
a Christian Democrat and an ordained priest in the Church of Sweden). This is
outside the scope of my review, but for obvious reasons, I have to point it
out…

Radler´s book
is a huge volume about the history of theology from Augustinus to Karl Barth,
with an obvious emphasis on German-speaking theologians. Protestantism is more extensively
covered than Catholicism, and Orthodoxy is hardly even mentioned. Some
anti-religious thinkers and higher critics have been included, such as D F
Strauss or the Pan-Babylonians, since they influenced the theological debates.
Likewise, some philosophers who influenced theology are covered: Kant, Fichte,
Hegel and Nietzsche. Interestingly, Radler has penned a lengthy chapter on Jakob
Böhme and also exposits on Master Eckhart and Valentin Weigel. Disappointingly,
Franz von Baader is mentioned mostly in passing.

However,
the bulk of the book deals with ”all the usual people”: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin,
Schleiermacher, the various Pietist currents, the Oxford Movement, Ritschl,
Troeltsch, Harnack, Barth, und so weiter. Since the book is Swedish, important
Swedish and Danish theologianshave been
included (think Anders Nygren or Grundtvig). The style is rather heavy and
in-house, and often presupposes some background knowledge of the thinkers covered.
No hard feelings – this is obviously a tome for the advanced theology student! Radler´s
own opinions on theological matters is difficult to fathom from the material,
but here and there a conservative political outlook is visible, as when he implicitly
supports the Holy Alliance. This may explain why the book never mentions
feminist or liberation theology, to take two examples of more radical causes.

I got some sympathy
for the quip ”theology – is that even a subject?” after reading Radler´s work. To
a modern observer, the never-ending controversies between different Protestant factions
with exotic names such as Philippists and Gnesiolutherans sound like much ado
over nothing (or something impossible to really ”prove”) and I sometimes wonder
how much of a headache the poor German princes got from listening to these
leading lights – the rulers, after all, had to ”solve” the theological disputes
according to the principle ”cuius regio, eius religio”. (Had I been a Holy Roman
princeling, I would have been tempted to impose Hoodoo on my regio, just to
make a point.) I got my first immersion in the strange thought of Böhme from
this book. I admit I was appalled. Böhme sounds ”seriously stoned”, to be
somewhat diplomatic. But then, Zinzendorf´s "time of sifting" was probably even worse! I laughed when I read that one Karl Immanuel Nitzsch was once
considered to be the greatest theologian who ever lived, ”greater than even Schleiermacher”.
Today, nobody has heard of him and even his John the Precursor (Schleiermacher,
remember?) has probably fallen on posthumously bad times. Another strange factoid:
yes, the confessionalist Lutherans really did believe that *all* of Scripture was
inspired by the Holy Ghost, including the Hebrew vowel marks?! Ahem, there were no vowel marks in the original manuscripts…

Although
”Kristendomens idéhistoria” is rather heavy, I have from time to time used it
as a resource, and I think you will too, provided you are interested in the
topics covered and/or plan to take over some obscure German principality…

14 comments:

Karl Barth wrote an absurdly gigantic 13-volume "Church Dogmatics", but when asked by some funny guy if he could summarize it in one sentence, responded: "Jesus loves me, this I know, cuz the Bible tells me so".

Gotta love the guy. Good to know that even Swiss theologians have a sense of humor!

Hoodoo is originally German, so why not impose it on Saxe-Gotha-Anschluss-Schwarzwald-Über-Oder-Neisse-Polische-Korridoren-Schmalkalden-Jawohl, or whatever fanciful name the German principality of your choice might have!

Jesus was the brother of Wotan, ritually sacrificed in the World Tree. The cross = Irminsul. The resurrection = the return of the vegetation. It all fits together. Let´s impose this theology on the Non-Holy Non-Roman Fake-Empire of the Non-German Non-Nation!